Toccata and Fugue
by snowcloud8
Summary: Because of Drosselmeyer, Duck remembered she was a bird, Rue became Kraehe, Mytho realized he needed his heart back, and Fakir became a story spinner. But what if the author had never interfered? What if the story remained stopped at the beginning? Puppets that were forced into roles are now cut free of their strings left to their own devices. Will they still get a happy ending? AU
1. A Sudden Event

**Prologue: A Sudden Event  
**

A woman shrouded in darkness watched from her illuminated screen. Many times before had her eyes ventured towards the tale of "the Prince and the Raven." Though the characters of the tale had taken back the story and made it their own, many of the townsfolk had been hurt and become collateral damage in the process, thanks to the influence of the deceased author, Drosselmeyer. Knowing that so many had been affected and hurt because of his selfish meddling left a bittersweet taste in the woman's mouth. Her gaze fell on the young writer and his bird companion displayed in her magic mirror, her eyes softening at the little duck that gradually nodded off and lazily bobbed in the water while her friend smiled wistfully and wrote in his notebook.

Such innocence and purity was nearly ruined because of a manipulative, decrepit old man, whose only aspiration was to achieve tragedy to the point where even death hadn't hindered him, no matter how twisted reality had become in the process. One little bird was the savior of a whole town, yet this was how she was repaid. After all of the trials and adversity she had faced, she was doomed to remain a duck for all time and to be remembered by no one in town other than an useless knight, who had also achieved a bittersweet ending.

 _No... I will not see it end like this. Not again!_ The woman frowned. With a wave of her hand, the images on her viewing device began to move in reverse. All the heartache and pain, all the joy and sadness, everything was spinning backwards, as if history was being unraveled and undone from a tug of a loose thread.

 _Turn back the tale, spin the gears of time, back to when all was forgotten..._ She rotated her hand, her adamant gaze ever watchful for the key moment. _Stop!_ Her hand twitched abruptly as her eyes became alight with anxious excitement. The tale was paused on a wide overview of the clock-tower, the tallest building in Gold Crown Town. Pulling her black cloak over her, she stepped through the projected image before she found herself inside of the self-same clock tower. A glowing portal made up of many strange runes and coded numbers lit her back as she stood in the attic of the building.

 _This is where the device was held..._ She glanced around the tower before her eyes found the clockwork device spinning and turning, a recently added attachment to the clock's standard gears. _Still here, after all this time..._ Her hand gently grazed the intricate contraption before firmly grasping the metal device that held the ink pen made up of a white swan's feather.

Her purpose here was to give the characters another chance at their happy ending, with no outside influence. She was not the one who would control such destiny, but rather hand them the opportunity to reshape their own stories, for she was no story spinner, but she could at least remove _his_ influence. That was the only thing she _could_ do. The pen quivered in her hand like a mouse trying to escape from a cat's paw, unable to write further as her grip tightened to the point of almost crushing the device.

 _This shall put an end to it!_ She declared before abruptly ripping the mechanical arm away, tearing various hinges, pulleys, and bolts apart like they were cobwebs on the ceiling before the gears of the contraption came to a gradual halt. Her eyes narrowed, her smile curling into a smug, victorious grin.

 _Let him try and finish his story with **this** in tatters... S_ he sneered at the broken bits of the late author's abhorred invention before casting it away onto the floor with the rest of the garbage.

She briefly looked back over the town and soundlessly bade the good townspeople good luck and best wishes before disappearing into her portal to sit back and observe. Unbeknownst to her, the hands on the Gold Crown Town clock also came to halt the moment she had broken the device, the hands forever stuck between ten and two, and all clockwork noise fell to silence.


	2. A Happy Accident

**Chapter 1: A Happy Accident**

The next morning, Duck was awoken by the sound of tapping on her windowsill. Traces of her dreams quickly ebbed away as she blearily glanced out the window with eyes filled with sleep and saw a large flock of songbirds congregating outside.

"Oh no! What time is it?!" Duck yelped, noticing it was later in the day than she thought before she accidentally fell out of her top bunk and landed with a thud. The bruises forming on her back marked this to be the third time this week she had fallen out of bed. Maybe she could ask the dorm advisor about getting a bottom bunk.

After pulling out a large bag of birdseed and pouring her friends a bowl, she unlocked the window and greeted the birds with a cheerful "morning" before she was met with large hungry swarm of feathers, beaks, and talons. She managed to place the bowl on the windowsill, which successfully distracted the swarm away from her, but by then she had been covered head-to-toe in bird feathers. For some reason, they had always been attracted to her. She just seemed to have a natural affinity with birds. Maybe it was because she was named Duck. It probably didn't hurt that she fed them birdseed as well.

Duck wiped her brow and sighed in relief. "Phew! You guys sure are hungry, huh? Guess you've been waiting for a while." _Weird. The bell for morning classes was supposed to go off by now. How strange... Unless-!_ "Oh no! I'm late for class!" Duck panicked the moment her thoughts caught up with her.

No wonder her little friends were so hungry. She didn't even have time to talk with Canary Mom and ask about her kids, not that the bird could talk back or anything since she was just a bird, but Canary Mom seemed to understand her on some level. Noting it as something she would do later, Duck hurried and threw on her uniform before grabbing her book bag and sprinting down the hallway like a spaz. Right as she ran past the boy's dormitory, Duck slowed her pace to stare up at the balcony that lead to Mytho's room, the "prince" of Gold Crown Academy.

 _I hope Mytho has a good morning. Knowing him, he'll already be at the school. He's such an incredible student, and a dancer..._ Duck sighed thoughtfully, imagining his graceful movements before she pictured herself dancing along with him. _I would just love to dance a_ _pas de deux with him. I'd give anything for that to happen..._ She giggled bashfully to herself, slipping off into her own fantasies before she noticed more time had passed and continued to make a mad dash towards the school.

The academy was supposed to be getting a new ballet instructor, and it wouldn't bode well for her to make such a poor impression on their first day by being late. Her grades were already poor in her other classes, so she really needed to make a good first impression in the one class she actually liked. However, judging from how quiet the school and ladies locker room were, she had a terrible feeling that she was already way behind. As she pulled on her leotard, she sprinted towards her class's ballet studio before peeking out behind one of the double doors.

"I'm so sorry that I'm late!" she cried out as she apologetically bowed, though her voice was met with echoed silence. _Huh? There's no one here... Why? Am I early or did I miss class?_

As if to answer her question, the gramophone piano began chiming the first couple of notes from "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from the Nutcracker. Her eyes drifted towards a figure that began dancing out of the corner of her eye, a lithe and graceful silhouette which belonged to none other than the prince himself.

 _Senior Mytho!_ Duck staggered back in shock and awe as she watched him dance. _Wow... he dances so beautifully... Now that I think about it, I feel like I've seen this before... maybe in my dream last night, but I don't remember... I hope it was about Senior Mytho._ Duck sighed happily before she suddenly became aware of herself as a pair of golden, somber eyes held her gaze.

"Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to disturb you! I'm disturbing you, aren't I? Of course I'm disturbing you, aren't I? Aren't I? I'll go!" Duck rambled awkwardly as she swiftly tried to leave, but her body refused to cooperate with her. It didn't help that her ballet shoes were old and the ground beneath her wasn't coated with rosin, making the wood floor very slippery. She could feel the ground slip beneath her as she awkwardly shuffled towards the door, only to feel the weightlessness of gravity as she fell. She cringed as she prepared to hit the ground before she felt strong, supportive arms holding her inches from the floor.

 _Mytho. Arms. Me. I'm in Mytho's arms!_ Her brain gradually processed before she felt herself drawn into his deep amber gaze. He was much more handsome up close, but his eyes held such a deep sadness to them. The more she gazed into them, the more self-conscious she became as she sputtered incoherently and quickly scooted away from him.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry about bothering you, huh! I'm really such a scatterbrain, and I'm just so bad about things, like everything. And top of that, I'm always too hasty, and Pique and Lilie say I talk like a duck, so I'm weird! I mean, don't you think I'm weird?" She rambled before mumbling sadly to herself. "Shoot, even I think I'm weird..."

"I don't." She blinked, almost unsure if she heard him right.

"W-What? Y-You don't think I'm weird?" she asked.

"I don't," Mytho repeated, causing Duck to become overwhelmed with euphoric bliss.

"Ah! I can't believe it! No one's ever said that to me..." She gushed, feeling like she was almost going to pass out on the floor from happiness, blissfully unaware of the door that opened behind her.

 _"Hey,"_ a voice called out, jarring her briefly from her daydreams before she flushed again under the sharp gaze of Mytho's friend.

 _Senior Fakir!_ Duck squealed inside her head, immediately sitting at attention. Like Mytho, Fakir was one of the more advanced upperclassmen that occasionally sat in with her beginner ballet class, since it was required for all ballet students to take a basics class to keep up their form and stamina, and like Mytho, Fakir had his own group of fan girls following him, Duck's friend Pique being one of them. It seemed like all her friend's ramblings about Fakir were true, as he appeared almost as handsome as Mytho up close, however Fakir's appearance was soured by his cold, irritated expression.

"Did I not tell you to inform me when you go out?" Fakir grumbled.

"Yes," Mytho nodded.

"We're going. Stand up," Fakir ordered, only for his friend to make a noise of discomfort. "What's wrong?"

"My foot..." Mytho spoke softly.

"Your foot? Did you _twist_ it?" Fakir narrowed his eyes, saying it as less as a question and more of a statement. He let out an irritated scoff. "Idiot."

The more she listened, the more Duck became disillusioned with Fakir as she watched her impression of him shatter before her very eyes. The upperclassman's eyes followed towards her sound of distress, as if he just noticed she was in the room, and narrowed his eyes at her acknowledgement.

"I umm... it was my fault," Duck admitted bashfully, suddenly feeling embarrassed under his scrutinizing gaze. "He saved me when I tripped and..."

"What were you thinking, doing such a pointless thing?" Fakir questioned, addressing Mytho.

"Like I said, he was just trying to protect me," she defended before Fakir rolled his eyes.

"That's why I said 'pointless,'" he said before roughly grabbing Mytho's wrist and pulling behind him like a dog on a leash. "Stand up. We're going back. Class has almost started." Duck gave him a small frown.

"You don't have to be so rough with him!"

"Be quiet!" Fakir hissed before taking his leave and shutting the door behind him.

 _Pointless, huh? Well, sure maybe, but you didn't have to say it quite so bluntly, you know..._ Duck thought to herself, filled with disdain towards the upperclassman. _Wait! Did he say class was starting? Then I'm in..._ She looked around, noticing that the wall didn't have its usual arrangement of mirrors and ballet barres. _Oh no! I'm in one of the practice rooms!_

* * *

"Where the heck were you?" her friend Pique asked as Duck barely managed to slip in before class had begun.

"I'm sorry," Duck apologized as she lifted her leg to stretch on the barre. "I forgot where I was going and ended up in one of the practice rooms by mistake."

"Scatterbrained as usual," her other friend Lilie sighed joyfully, enjoying her friend's torment. "So cute!"

"How'd you do that?" Pique exclaimed in surprise. Duck then explained her morning to her two best friends, which quickly gained both of their attentions when Fakir and Mytho were mentioned.

"As amazing as that was, that still doesn't explain why you were almost late," Pique crossed her arms thoughtfully.

"Well, normally I just wake up when the town bell goes off, but I guess I slept in longer than I thought," Duck shrugged.

"Maybe, although now that I think about it, I don't think I heard it go off this morning either. Must be broken or something," Pique said. "Anyways, why don't you get an alarm clock like normal people? That's how I always get up in the morning."

"Oh no, she shouldn't! Then we wouldn't get to see her dash off with that cute look of horror on her face!" Lilie squealed as she eagerly ruffled Duck's head. "Please always be our clumsy, scatterbrained Duck!"

"But hey, on the plus side, you had the great honor talking to Fakir, so it's OK!" Pique leaned on Duck's back, slightly jealous that Duck had seen _the_ Senior Fakir up close. Unfortunately, Duck was in a compromising position and all the pressure on her back was making her leg stretch a bit more than she was comfortable with.

"He isn't a very nice person!" Duck grit her teeth through the pain before Pique leaned against her even harder than before, causing shooting stabs of pain racing up and down her leg.

"What'd you say? You know Fakir's the best!" Pique glowered while Duck cried out in pain.

"No! The best is Senior Mytho! Oww oww OWW!" Duck declared defiantly through the pain while Lilie giggled.

"Oh, Duck! Did you forget? The wonderful Mytho already has Rue," the blonde added cheerfully, sending Duck into a small spiral of depression. "A doomed love. A Duck, destined for heartbreak. How cute!"

Lilie was right. She didn't even really know Mytho at all. She was just like all the other fan girls, just sitting and admiring him from afar. Why would he care about her? Before she could sink any further into depression, Pique nudged her in the side.

"The teacher's here!"

"Oh! Right!" Duck nodded, setting down her leg and turning to face the new instructor. However, his appearance is what shocked her the most. "Cat!?" The whole class gasped at Duck's sudden familiarity, addressing their teacher so informally.

"That's _Mr._ Cat!" Pique warned.

"Mr. Cat?" Duck blinked.

"Something wrong, Duck?" Lilie asked her. Were her friends seeing what she was seeing? Was their instructor seriously a cat or was she the one seeing things? Then again... maybe she was just over thinking things.

"All right! Quiet down, class! If you don't, rest assured, _I will have you marry me!"_ Mr. Cat threatened before he cleared his throat and continued on. "Anyway, as Miss -Duck, was it?- so eloquently put, my name is Mr. Cat, and I shall be your ballet instructor for Beginning Ballet and Basic Forms class."

So he _did_ hear her! Duck could already feel herself shrinking further into the background. So much for making a good first impression.

"For many of you, this is a repeat class that you are required to take, but regardless it is necessary for those who wish to become ballet dancers, because one who cannot master the basics cannot achieve master techniques that our class will eventually cover," Mr. Cat continued before clapping his paws together. "Now then everyone, we shall start class with some warm up exercises. Start in first position!" All of the dancers gathered at the ballet barres, the younger students following and copying some of the older, experienced students as they instinctively stood on their tiptoes and held out their left arms. _"Relevé!_ And move your arms to second position. Remember! Straight legs! Good. And now third position, arms _en haut_. That's it!"

While Mr. Cat scolded some of the students for sticking their butts out as they changed position, Duck couldn't help but think back to this morning. Mytho was already performing more advanced moves when she had stumbled upon him. Despite his grace and form, his eyes had held such a deep loneliness to them. While she daydreamed, Duck failed to move into the fourth position, which gained the immediate attention of Mr. Cat.

" _Bottoms_ ," hissed Mr. Cat, who had appeared behind her and caught her in her starstruck daze. _"Miss Duck,_ is it? I've heard of you from your former instructor, Mr. Felis. It appears your reputation proceeds you."

"O-Oh! W-Well, thank you, I guess," Duck stammered, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly.

"That was sarcasm," Mr. Cat narrowed his amber eyes. "Your old instructor may have been lenient towards your lax behavior, and I understand that some students like to phase out the new teacher, but I am, however, not Mr. Felis, and I expect certain decorum when it comes to ballet class, such as being on time, not being disruptive, and _paying attention_. This is my only warning. Fail to do so, and I will have no choice but to _have you marry me!_ "

"Yes, sir!" Duck gulped before quickly moving into fourth position as the teacher anxious licked his paw and washed his face. After they were done with their morning exercises, Mr. Cat had everyone sit down on the marley floor.

"All right, class, now that we have all warmed up, we will now observe a performance by the special class in order to see some of the techniques you can later achieve with diligence and training." Mr. Cat motioned towards the pair of double doors. "Members of the special class, _entrez-vous_!"

A group of young ladies in tutus stepped into the class holding workout towels. Four of them wore royal blue tutus with pale blue tights while the prima donna wore red from her head to her pointe toes and stood in the center of the group. The prima donna was always the best dancer of the group, so it made complete sense that Rue was that prima donna. Her soft scarlet eyes matched the shine of her blood-red tutu as the dancers got into position around her and waited for the accompanist penguin to start playing their tune before they initiated the dance.

Unlike the Beginner's Class, all of the girls stood _en pointe_ and moved almost like it was effortless to dance on your tip-toes. The class couldn't help but be in awe of them.

 _Rue's so talented,_ Duck gushed as she watched her _plié_ and _grande allegro_. It was then that she realized that the ballet movements she was watching now almost mimicked the ones Mytho was doing earlier. _For Senior Mytho... It'd have to be someone like Rue to make a good match..._

"I want to be a good match too!" Duck declared, not realizing she had said that out loud until she saw a very peeved Mr. Cat stalking over towards her.

"Miss Duck! I won't indulge you any more! This time I WILL have you marry...!" he began before Pique and Lilie shielded her from him.

"She's sorry! Duck was just so moved, she couldn't help but cry out!" Pique defended as she patted Duck's head.

"She's taxing but cute, so please forgive her!" Lilie added, poking Duck's cheek over and over. This act seemed to sedate Mr. Cat enough that he simply turned and began anxiously washing his face over and over in the corner. It was times like this where Duck appreciated her best friends. They were a little odd and not always supportive at times, though Duck was a little odd herself, but despite everything, they at least had her back when it counted. Thinking about her outburst, she managed to spy Mytho and Fakir sitting at the very back of the class, far out of Duck's reach.

 _I still haven't made a proper apology to Senior Mytho for getting him hurt. I have to apologize!_ However, before she knew it, class had ended and Mytho was nowhere to be found.

* * *

After briefly stepping out to return and retrieve some books from the library, Fakir walked back towards the boy's dorm. Originally, he had lived with Charon, his adoptive father and town blacksmith, but because Mytho lived in the dorms, Fakir felt obligated to do so as well, since he wanted to be close enough to him so he could watch over his friend. Charon had a business to run and couldn't watch over Mytho all of the time when Fakir was at school, and since Fakir was already enrolled in the academy, it seemed to be the logical choice to enroll Mytho in the academy, and so far it had worked well for them.

Ballet was the one thing Mytho was genuinely interested in, and with all the mental and physical effort that went into it, it would keep the prince occupied long enough that he wouldn't have enough time to think about the vacancy inside his chest. Plus, the prince needed to be distracted by something in order to keep him from acting reckless. The sad thing about losing one's heart is that common sense and self-preservation were completely lost on him, and since the prince had neither fear nor regret to guide him, this caused Fakir to have a lot of time set aside in order to keep Mytho in check. There were some days where Fakir could barely go two hours without fending Mytho off from some pressing fan girl, and that sometimes led to a lot of sleepless nights. The only place he ever seemed to find solace in was the library.

Fakir liked the library. It was quiet, peaceful, and helped soothe his troubled mind, especially since none of the fan girls ever ventured in there, most of them being disinterested with reading English literature and philosophy for pleasure. The few people who did show up in the library were there for research or made out with their significant others in the dusty stacks section of the library, which Fakir avidly avoided for that specific reason. Anyone else who showed up left him alone to his studies, where he could just lose himself in a good book and briefly forget about his responsibilities. Sadly, he couldn't spend as much time as he wanted there, inevitably having to return to watch over his friend. It was his duty, and it was for Mytho's, as well as everyone else's, own good.

Leaving the library this morning gave him a calming feeling. It seemed like today was going to be a good day for him, only dealing with a slight hiccup with Mytho spraining his foot. He had collected a set of books for Mytho to read in his spare time while remained off his feet to heal, and Fakir could try and see if he could get a nap in before noon, since his spent most of his time this morning waking up early to search for Mytho drained him of the necessary energy to make it through the day without killing someone. However, that quickly changed when he saw the little redhead girl standing in front of his dorm.

"Oh! You stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid coward!" the girl angrily berated herself, hitting herself in the head over and over. He arched his brow at this, recognizing her to be the girl from earlier this morning. All the more reason to disregard her and shove her aside. Nothing was going to get in between him and his bed.

"You're in my way," Fakir growled irritably behind her. The redhead nuisance was so startled by his authoritative voice that when she saw him, she almost seemed to forget what she wanted to say, and almost lost the opportunity to say anything as he quickly maneuvered around her and stepped inside the dorm before she managed to find her voice again.

"So umm, is Senior Mytho-?" she began before he swiftly cut her off, already knowing what she was going to say.

"He's not here," Fakir lied, going with his go-to answer. So she _was_ a Mytho fan girl. How irritating. Most of the time, Fakir didn't like associating with people, but fan girls were the absolute worst of the bunch. They were more persistent, unpredictable, and problematic for him, either by getting in the way of menial tasks or risking Mytho's exposure as a prince without a heart. In the end, they were all the same. All of them claimed to like him or Mytho, but none of them understood a thing, and sometimes that was one of the few things that pissed him off the most. They only liked what they wanted to see. They didn't care about what they were really like. It was that fact that helped Fakir naturally brush them off, like their feelings didn't matter. However, the more he tried to push this particular girl away, the more she seemed to dig in her heels.

"Go home," he said tersely before pulling to door behind him, only to be met with resistance. He turned around, surprised to see that the girl had stuck half of her body into the door. She certainly was bold, he had to give her that.

"How is his injury?" she asked him. _Might as well indulge her. Maybe it will make her go away faster,_ Fakir thought before replying.

"It's not serious," Fakir sighed, hoping that would be the end of it. However, the girl was still bent on apologizing to Mytho, which he immediately dismissed. It's not like Mytho would even understand anyways. He didn't even understand when he had hurt himself, let alone hurt others. After dismissing the girl for the third time, she stood up after sliding all the way down the door frame, finally taking her foot out of the door, which Fakir saw as the golden opportunity to shut the door behind him.

"Are you like this to everyone you talk to?" the redhead managed to say before he cut her off with the door. Finally, the little annoyance was gone, and hopefully, would go away for the rest of the day. He had books for Mytho and some free time before his next class. Nothing was going to ruin this for him.

* * *

The next day, Duck decided to try her luck at meeting Mytho in secret. Not wanting to run into bossy, overprotective Fakir, she hid behind the hedges outside of the boy's dormitory and waited for Mytho to appear. On their way to school, her friends had run into her and decided to cover for her, so she was more than prepared to wait him out and see this through. As minutes gone by began to feel like an eternity, Duck's eyes were drawn to the little fluttering birds flapping on the rain gutters.

"Oh! That's right! Canary Mom's kids leave the nest today!" Duck thought aloud as she watched the little birds gradually launch themselves into the air. She couldn't help but feel overcome by a moment of pride, having witnessed the canary babies grow up since they were tiny blue eggs. Now they were learning how to fly and were officially ready to leave the nest and go explore the outside world.

Canary Mom was circling around the nesting area, encouraging her babies to take the first step while looking out for predators, since this left her chicks vulnerable to bigger animals. Watching Canary Mom made Duck wonder if she would ever be able to make out there on her own, since she didn't really have anyone looking out for her. One by one, the canaries left the nest. The only one left was the meekest of bunch. It squeaked anxiously, distressed at the large height and large gusts of wind. Its sharp and frightened cries not only gained the attention of a white haired prince, but a nearby raven, who was looking for its next meal.

"Ah! Be careful!" Duck called out nervously as Mytho climbed dangerously far outside of his high, balcony window, watching the yellow bird with a fixed curiosity. Suddenly, the raven swooped in for the kill but was swiftly blocked by Canary Mom, who charged into the black bird. However, the raven's ability to turn around in the air was faster than the mother, and it quickly moved past her before she could defend her chick. The raven was inches away from snatching the yellow bird in its sharp talons before the baby canary tottered and fell from the rain gutter at the last second. With no regard to his own safety, Mytho instinctively leapt out of the window and caught the falling bird before grasping it to his chest. And then he fell.


End file.
